Chapter 22
One man’s trash …
At eight o’clock on Friday morning, I’m on my way to collect Logan from his star room — our transport to False Bay Adrenalin Adventures is waiting in the parking lot — when I hear a shout.
“Romy! Romy!” Cilla’s calling to me from across the lot.
She’ll probably have something uncomplimentary to say about how I’m dressed today, but I refuse to go on the shark-diving boat in anything but jeans, sneakers, and the bare minimum of make-up (coloured lip-gloss, waterproof mascara). I’m wearing my bikini beneath my clothes, and I’ve stuffed my wetsuit into my tote bag.
As I walk over to Cilla, I slip on my sunglasses and tug a floppy straw sunhat down low on my forehead to disguise my mostly naked face.
“Good morning,” I say.
“What are you wearing?” she asks, frowning.
“Great weather for a dive, isn’t it? Are you coming out with us?”
Cilla hands me a thick stack of post. “This is forwarded mail for Britney and Logan, it arrived with the courier package today — make sure they get it. Tell Logan to check his because it includes mail for Levi,” she says with an odd smile.
“Who’s Levi?”
“And tell him there’s been a change of plan for today. We’ll be doing his shark shoot at the aquarium on the Waterfront. Philip’s organised everything.”
“At the aquarium? What about —”
“Yeah, they do shark dives there. Britney put us onto it. She’s getting pics done with penguins there today, so we’ll have double the bait for the media.”
“But —”
“Logan can do the dive safely in the fish tank there. They say it’s great — glass all round, seaweed, colourful little fishes. And none of the bother of having to go out on a boat. It’s perfect.”
“But he’ll be disappointed that —”
“Wise up, Romy. The insurance would never have covered him out at sea.”
“Did you try?”
“What did I tell you about backchat on your first day here? Besides, we need to get full publicity from this little stunt, and how would we get all the media onto a boat and underwater in the middle of the effing ocean? No, it’s much better my way. It always is.” She cackles evilly. “You run along now and break the good news to Logan.”
With a sinking heart and heavy feet, I walk back across the lot, slip Britney’s mail under the door of her room and, when Logan opens his door, silently hand him his. He tosses the letters onto the dining table.
“Hi, all ready for our expedition I see?” he says, flicking a finger at the brim of my hat. “What’s with the long face, Romy? Getting scared for the cage dive?”
“There isn’t going to be any cage dive.”
His smile vanishes. “What do you mean?”
“Cilla’s canned it. She’s turned it into a shoot in a fish tank at the aquarium, so you can get ‘full publicity’ from the stunt.”
Logan’s face tightens. Then he curses and bangs a fist on the table.
“She always does this! Every single time I have a chance to do something real, or authentic or interesting, she turns me into a performing poodle for this three-freaking-ring circus. Every time! You remember when I went on the elephant-back safari in India to see tigers in the wild?”
“No, I wasn’t with you then.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t working for you back then.”
“Oh, right.”
“But I saw the photos online — awesome!”
“Faked and photoshopped.” He stares down at the palm of his hand, scratches something there.
“What? How?”
“That elephant I was ‘riding’ on? It was the trained, tame animal from the shoot. Make-up added some scars to make it look different — wilder, I guess. And I wasn’t riding, but just sitting on it in the soundstage, in front of a green screen. They added the jungle background and the monkeys later.”
“But the tiger — the tiger that was prowling into the picture? That scared the elephant into rearing on its hind legs and you nearly fell off and broke your back, but you stayed calm and soothed it? Like … like an elephant whisperer?”
“The elephant was standing up on command from its trainer, and I was strapped to the saddle. And the tiger was a mangy, old, toothless cat from the local circus. I mean, literally — he had no teeth. And his trainer was just outside of the frame holding out a leg of goat or something to get him to walk past. They superimposed that image, taken at the circus, onto the pic of me. We weren’t even on the same soundstage at the same time. But all the newsfeeds picked up the pictures and the waffle-copy that publicity had written about me being out on safari in the wild when a dangerous man-eater appeared. Total crap, it’s all bullshit.”
I say nothing. It’s an appalling deceit, but there’s no point in saying that — Logan already knows. There would be no point in telling Cilla either, she not only knows, she also doesn’t care. And she would only tell me to zip my lip or lose my job.
“You go on ahead. Tell her I’m on my way.” Logan leans both his hands on the table and stares blindly down at the pile of mail.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly and leave.
I make a quick detour to hand in my completed time sheet at the pay office, and I’m about to set off for the main gate when I notice Logan emerging from his room. I hesitate, wondering if I should wait for him, but judging from the way he slams the door shut behind him and storms across the lot, his mood has turned foul and he might want to be left alone for a while.
He’s carrying a trash bag, and when he gets to the line of wheelie bins behind the next soundstage, he flings it into one of them, bangs the lid down, and stalks off. Strange. Logan doesn’t usually empty his own trash. Also, I’ve never seen him move so fast off-screen. I’m about to shrug it off when I notice a man sneaking over to the row of dustbins. I recognise him at once — it’s the gum-chewing, bald, weasel-faced paparazzo from the night I rescued Logan.
I break into a run, grateful for my sneakers. The paparazzo already has his camera up to his eye and is lifting the lid of the bin when I reach him and smack his hand away.
“Hey! What are you doing, lady?”
“What are you doing?” I counter, resting my hand on the closed lid of the bin.
“I just wanted to throw my gum away. You got a problem with that?”
I take a tissue out of my pocket and hold it under his mouth. Reluctantly, he spits his gum into it.
“Now you can go. You shouldn’t be here — unless you can show me your permission slip to be on the lot?”
He says nothing.
“I thought so. Who did you bribe to get in?”
He merely stares at me speculatively while he unwraps another stick of gum and shoves it into his mouth. He crumples the silver wrapper and makes to put it in the bin. Again, I hold out my hand and, sneering, he drops the little foil ball into it.
“What’s in the bin?” he asks. “What did he want to get rid of that you don’t want anyone to see, hey? What are you covering up for him?”
I lift the lid and peer inside the packet Logan dumped, frantically trying to think what I can say that will put the reporter off wanting to see.
“What is it, man? Used syringes or crack pipes? Photos of him wrapped around an underage nymphet?” He hops from one foot to the other in excitement. “Is it something sick?”
That gives me an idea.
“Eww, yes. It’s puke.”
“Huh?” He cranes his neck to try and get a glimpse of the contents.
“It’s vomit. That’s all it is.”
“You trying to tell me Logan Rush has morning sickness?”
“Oh yeah, he’s pregnant. That’s hilarious,” I say, not smiling. “Maybe he ate a bad oyster or something. He obviously didn’t want it stinking up his room.”
“An oyster? For breakfast?” he says suspiciously.
“Hey, he’s a star, he eats what he wants, when he wants.”
“If he had food poisoning, he wouldn’t be walking off to go film.”
“Ah, but he’s such a pro — he knows the show must go on, and he doesn’t let anything get in the way of that. You can write that in your rag.”
I stick two fingers into my mouth, whistle piercingly to get the attention of a security guard patrolling near the pay-office, and beckon him over.
“Come on, girly, you must have some juicy stories. We pay our sources well, you know.” He gives me a grubby business card and stares at me hard. “Hey, are you also someone famous? I can’t tell with all the —” He waves an irritated hand at my sunglasses and hat.
“This person does not have permission to be on the set,” I tell the burly security guard who trots up to us. “Please take him outside.”
“Alright, alright,” the reporter says, trying to shrug off the guard’s grasp. “You’ve got my number, lady. Call me. I want to hear what you have to say.”
Keeping a sideways eye on them, I dump the tissue, gum wrapper and business card in the bin, wipe my hands on my jeans, and walk away unconcernedly, just in case the weasel is still looking back over his shoulder to see what I’m doing. But I can’t leave anything Logan’s keen to get rid of lying in the bin if there’s even a remote chance the reporter might find a way to get it.
As soon as he and the guard are out of sight, I dash back and retrieve the trash bag. Stuffed inside are empty soda cans, protein-bar wrappers and tossed call-sheets. And a narrow white envelope.
It’s been torn in half, but not opened — the back flap is still sealed under two ink stamps: Unprivileged mail and Inspected. I turn the halves over. The letter, marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL, is addressed in small cramped hand-writing to Logan Rush care of the production company’s postal address. Next to the postmarked US stamps in the corner, is the sender’s name and address: Mr. J Peabody, ID 32/02/3666-781, Louisiana State Penitentiary, General Delivery, Angola, L.A. 70712.
Not stopping to think whether I should, I pull the letter out of one half, and get as far as seeing that it’s dated October 29 and begins, “Dear Levi,” when a shrill call from across the lot makes me snap my head up guiltily.
Shoot! Philip is frantically waving me over — they must all be waiting for me. I shove the letter into a back compartment of my tote bag and run.